Heart Note
by Little Miss Dragmire
Summary: When Heather Seaguin finds a mysterious black notebook and first meets its mysterious "guardian" she has no idea of its dark properties or how it'll alter her life irrevocably.  Death Note's plot meets Kingdom Hearts concepts with a nearly all-OC cast.
1. Prologue

Heart Note

By Little Miss Dragmire

**Disclaimer: I own neither Death Note nor Kingdom Hearts, although you will see elements of both in this story. I do own pretty much all of the characters, though, except for a couple you might recognize from the Kingdom Hearts universe. And that was a very poorly phrased disclaimer. I'll try to come up with another one.**

Prologue

A long time ago…

_Not _that_ long ago …_

There was a scientist, Ansem, who called himself 'Wise.' He had six apprentices, all of whom wanted to pursue a type of science forbidden by Ansem: the study of the heart's darkness.

_Not all of the apprentices were that interested, though. Aeleus would have been just fine studying those goats of his, and Dilan…_

Despite their master's warnings and admonishments, the apprentices, lead by the newest of their number, a man named Xehanort, secretly continued their studies. Some say too far…

_That might be considered an understatement. The "Some," I mean, not the rest of it._

The six apprentices, as a result of their research, created a race of creatures made from the heart's darkness: the Heartless.

_Little morons._

Unfortunately, in an experiment gone wrong, the six were transformed into the creatures they had created.

_The creatures they despised._

They each became Heartless. However, due to their strengths of heart, each retained his human form.

_That's right, it wasn't _just_ Xehanort. Surprise!_

The new humanoid Heartless formed a plan: to use the lesser Heartless to seize power from the heart of all worlds.

_Kingdom Hearts. What a goal._

However, Xehanort- or rather, Xehanort's Heartless- saw no reason to share the power he would acquire with any others, so, using a trick he had discovered in secret, he bound each of his fellows to an object.

_Traitor._

Ironically, all of the objects, and the Heartless they were bound to, outlasted Xehanort. Because each object had a Heartless bound to it, each object had special properties.

_Dark properties, naturally._

This story centers on one of them.

_This is gonna be fun…_

* * *

Ducking her head to avoid getting too drenched by the rain, the blond woman strode quickly and nervously into the library. She still wasn't sure if this was the best solution, but she couldn't stand to bear this burden any longer, and this seemed to be the only way. As she walked past the librarian's desk to her destination, she noticed the complete silence and lack of people. Good. This place was ideal. Finding the spot she was looking for: a reference shelf in a back corner that looked like none of the books had been touched in years, she reached into her jacket and pulled out what looked to be an ordinary black notebook. Then, she slid some of the books forward, wedged the notebook behind them, and stood back in satisfaction. There. It was out of her hands, and hopefully it'd be safe now.

As the woman walked back past the front desk, the librarian asked, "Were you looking for something to check out?" As the woman turned in surprise to face her, the librarian realized that she recognized her, although it had been a while. As a girl, this nervous-looking woman had visited the library at least once a week. Last the librarian had heard, she had gotten a job as a secretary to some politician. What she was doing here, though, was a bit of a mystery. The blond woman smiled weakly and said, "No, I already took care of what I was looking for."

After that day, people began to hear things moving in that back corner.

_**Yeah, this is really just a little taster to get things started and to fill you in on the situation. Hopefully I'll have a real Chapter 1 done before long. Oh, and later on, when this thing is in full swing, I'd like to see if anyone can guess who the narrator in the first half of this was. (LMD)**_


	2. I: Discovery

Heart Note

By Little Miss Dragmire

**Disclaimer: I own neither Death Note nor Kingdom Hearts, although you will see elements of both in this story. I do own pretty much all of the characters, though, except for a couple you might recognize from the Kingdom Hearts universe. And that was a very poorly phrased disclaimer. I'll try to come up with another one.**

Chapter 1

Rolling her shoulders to get the feeling of sitting at a school desk for too long out of her system, the brown-haired girl strolled casually into the library. As she walked in and waved a brief hello to the librarian, she noticed a few of her classmates sitting at the internet access computers. The girl tried to get by them quickly, but no luck. One of them, a blond boy in an American Eagle hoodie, saw her and began to talk far too loudly.

"Oh hello Heather," he drawled, turning to face her. Heather stopped. There was no way she could act like she hadn't heard him, and it was better to get this kind of thing over with.

"Hello, Michael." Her voice was completely calm and emotionless.

"We were just discussing that test we got back today in Worlds History. I wanted to ask you how you did, but you left before I could."

"So?" said another of the boys, turning his attention away from the social networking site up on his computer, "How'd ya do, Heather?"

She sighed. "97."

"Really?" said Michael, smirking, "Well, you're just smart then, aren't you." Heather walked away, but she could hear the boys talking.

"97? I copied off her and I only got a 76!"

"Well, she's just a freak…"

_Idiots,_ she thought to herself as she walked among the shelves, taking down books, _you'd think they'd realize that everyone can hear them when they talk that loudly in a library._

Finally Heather had picked enough books settled down in a quiet corner of the reference section. It was one of her favorite places to read, because it was absolutely silent. Ever since a year ago, when rumors started that the corner was haunted, no one but Heather had gone back there. She had heard the sounds, like something was moving or trying to move, but she had always assumed that it was simply people moving around in other sections of the library, or simply her imagination.

As she pressed her back against the shelf and slid down, preparing to deposit the small pile of books she had picked up, she noticed something different, something she somehow hadn't noticed before. The books, volumes of some encyclopedia or other, should have been all lined up, but a few of them were protruding, almost as if there were something behind them…

Heather pulled some of the books forward, and sure enough, there was something wedged back there. It looked to be a book or notebook of some kind. She briefly considered leaving it and going back to her book, but curiosity overcame her and she slipped it out. As soon as she did, she recognized the design on the cover.

_That's the Heartless Emblem!_

She flipped through the notebook- it was clearly a notebook, she could see that now- and discovered to her surprise that all the pages were blank.

_Now who would want to get rid of a perfectly good note… hey what's this?_

As she got towards the end, she discovered that the last three pages did have something written on them. The first two had a numbered list of statements; she would read those in a second. But the last page had a list of names.

_**Xehanort**_

_** Braig**_

_** Dilan**_

_** Even**_

_** Aeleus**_

_** Ienzo**_

_ I know those names,_ Heather thought, _those were Ansem the Wise's apprentices. What is this?_

She looked back at the beginning of the list, and began reading.

_ I… oh, one. These are Roman numerals. The being whose name is written in the Heart Note will become a Heartless. Two… three… four, a person becomes Owner of the Note by writing a name on it… This is ridiculous… Wait, what's this? Number six…_

"The Guardian of the Heart Note can only be seen or heard by people who have touched the Note."

Heather jumped and let out a small squeak, then leapt to her feet, dropping the notebook and looking around frantically for the speaker. To her surprise, she saw a boy floating a few inches off the ground.

He looked to be a few years younger than her and may have looked normal if he hadn't been floating and his one of his red eyes hadn't been looking overjoyed at her while the other was hidden by his silver hair.

"Oh, don't worry about me," he said cheerfully, "just keep reading. In fact, why don't you open up one of those other books you've got there? I've read the Note's Rules a few million too many times in my life, and I could use some fresh ink, so to speak."

Heather looked frantically from the boy to the notebook, then held it out to him. "Is this yours?" she asked nervously. The boy's grin faded and he answered, "It is… in a sense. Not that that does you any good. I'm intangible. See?" He thrust his arm through the shelf, then through her head. She jerked back in shock and ran into the shelf behind her. The boy rolled his eyes, "And you, clearly, are not. I'm Ienzo, by the way. What's your name?"

"H-Heather," she answered, taking a breath to pull herself together, then asking, "You mean, Ienzo, as in Ansem the Wise's youngest apprentice Ienzo?" The grin returned, "What's left of him, anyway. And I can tell you more, but only if you agree to take me out of here."

Heather took a moment to look at the situation. _I guess this room really is haunted_ she realized_ although this is the first time I've seen him… it's also the first time I've seen this notebook thing… the Heart Note, I guess. Wait a minute…_

"So you're the Guardian the Note talks about?" Heather asked Ienzo, whose eyebrows- at least the one visible one- shot up.

"Not bad," he said, "You'd be amazed how many of my previous owners I've had to flat-out explain that to. A few of them still didn't get it. I am the Guardian of the Heart Note, bound to it until I am destroyed or freed, and all that. But right now, I am eager to get out of here, and I'm hoping you'll take me with you. I can't go too far from the Note, you see, and I've been stuck in here for much too long."

_Huh… so I was right. And he told me a bit more than I expected him to. He must have been here for about a year. Must be lonely… maybe I should take this Note with me. After all, I don't have to write anything in it, right?_

"Taking the Note doesn't obligate me to anything, right?" she asked. Surprisingly, Ienzo laughed.

"It won't let me steal your heart or anything, if that's what you mean," he said, "No, aside from being able to detect my presence, you don't have any connection to the Note unless you write something in it. Which can be quite an invigorating experience, from what I've heard, by the way." Now it was Heather's turn to laugh. Whatever Ienzo was, he was starting to grow on her. At least, he wasn't as bad as some of the people she encountered daily.

"Nice try," she said picking up the notebook with her other books, "I'll carry this thing with me for a bit, but I don't think I'm ready to rip anyone's heart out."

"At least, not yet," Ienzo muttered to himself as he followed her through the door to… well, at least a bit more freedom than he'd had.

_**Phew! Sorry that took so long. Okay, now things are really getting started. For future reference, Heather's thoughts/inner monologues are always going to be in italics, and things written in the Note will be in bold italics (unless it's**____**an author's note at the end of the chapter, in which case it'll be signed by me)- LMD**_


End file.
